The moment we use the NIMBY label we prejudice ourselves against potentially legitimate local and global concerns and specific local protest movements. I do that too on some issues but do wonder sometimes whether I’m being unfair. I guess the determining factors would be how big a sacrifice a local community is asked to make, how great the greater good that sacrifice will serve, also who is protesting and what arguments they bring forth, what values they stand for, how these values align with yours, etc.

I can imagine this being initially an accidental discovery like oh every time so and so’s body interacts with the WiFi signal it’s the same pattern… until someone starts exploring this further… and then some engineer or their manager started looking for applications for this. In my experience engineering researchers especially are very good with coming up with use cases for whatever tech they’re working with, with little ethical consideration.

Tbh I always loved the idea of an opinionated car GPS/AI, just for fun, I always thought it would be hilarious if it gave instructions with an attitude or responded to the driver in kind, depending on what you throw at it. Still not buying a Tesla, just saying.

I mean yes race does intersect, it’s a longer discussion, I guess I’m just tired of this “whiteness” critique because it feels cheap and easy, hence intellectually lazy. Anything that happens in the west politically can be linked back to whiteness one way or another. I don’t think it’s been particularly helpful as a critique, in fact I think it has backfired and probably needs to go.

Very well said. I wish I could articulate this as well as you have here.

FYI, the manosphere is replete with non-white males, and that is not even including the inherent male chauvinism in other cultures. I’m sorry but the critique on whiteness is a little lazy intellectually.

I can absolutely see that. And I don’t think it’s AI-specific, it’s got to do with relegating responsibility to a machine. Of course AI in the guise of LLMs can make things worse with its low interpretability, where it might be even harder to trace anything back to an executive or clerical decision.

Or maybe that is part of the allure of automation: the eschewing of human responsibility, such that any bias in decision making appears benign (the computer deemed it so, no one’s at fault) and any errors - if at all recognized as such - become simply a matter of bug-fixing or model fine-tuning. The more inscrutable the model the better in that sense. The computer becomes an oracle and no one’s to blame for its divinations.

Such a shame that Coppola’s movie was bad. He was onto something there.

Zuck puts out this weird “pick me” or “me too” energy lately, trying to fashion himself as one compatible with Trump’s world. His interest in Rome may precede Trump’s ascension to power, but his coming out is not a coincidence in my view. And yes, a fascination with Rome started as so many other things as an “innocent” meme and became a fascist dog-whistle.

Thanks for the correction, it’s Augustus Cesar. Still, what an odd connection. Good article btw.

Zuckerberg wears t-shirts comparing himself to Julius Caesar? Why is that every time I think I’m up-to-date on the latest weirdness there’s more of it?

Huh had no idea. I still wonder how accurate this is though, like whether it can be used forensically as the word “fingerprint” suggests to identify a specific person/private machine. It’s kind of fascinating as a topic. I would think that given that most people use similar setups, similar hardware and software, similar routers and settings, it would be impossible, but perhaps with enough details of a particular setup, a specific machine and user can be identified with decent accuracy.

Usually fingerprint plays a supporting role for example when you do those “click here” captchas that’s actually just giving the browser time to fingerprint you and evaluate your trust to decide whether to give you a full captcha or let you through. So fingerprint is always there in tbe background these days tho mostly for security and ad tracking.

I’ve been wondering about those “click here” captchas and their purpose 🤔

So… how effective is it? The fingerprinting. I’m guessing there are studies? Also don’t know whether there’s been legal precedent, ie whether fingerprinting has been recognized as valid means of user identification in a court case.